The Torchwood Drabbles
by The Mudblooded Slytherin
Summary: Series of TW Drabbles written for a livejournal community.
1. Chapter 1

Fear and Loathing in Cardiff  
_prompt: Listening to Fear_

There are times, in the dark, in the silence of Torchwood after hours, when Jack listens to fear.

When he feels so alone and afraid and insecure and everything is creeping up on him suffocating him he can't breathe his mind is crying out, he can't take it, he can't, he's screaming--

Sometimes he just wants to leave, forget Torchwood, find some new place, but deep down he knows it won't help. He could disguise for a while his loneliness: new places, new faces, new excuses. Under it all is such desolation no one will understand.

There's nothing in this universe for him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
_prompt: Teacher's Pet_

In school, Owen used to beat up the teacher's pet. He never had a teacher he liked (pompous twats, the lot) and it gave him a perverse thrill to hurt those who ran around trying to please them. A contest between him and his teacher, and the bruises he inflicted proved his dominance.

Owen's still the boy he used to be. He knows he can't go around beating up people he dislikes, so he finds new ways of leaving marks. "Take it, teaboy," he whispers fiercely.

When he hears the familiar, _"Yessss..."_ it's more satisfying than any fight he ever won before.

_prompt: Some Assembly Required_

"How does--"

"If I knew, don't you think I would tell you?" Jack cut him off, peeved.

Ianto just raised an eyebrow. He ignored this and turned back to the table. "If I could just get this bit into that bit, and perhaps this knobbly-bit with that..." Jack stopped and tried to describe it without the word 'bit', "...odd-looking part..." he sighed and put the pieces back on the table.

When Gwen came in their faces were tired, ties askew, shirts wrinkled. "Wot you two up to?"

"Artifact. Broken. Very dangerous. Go away."

"What they been doing in there all day?" Owen asked, peeved.

"Model trains."


	2. Date: February 17, 2008, 00:39

_Date: February 17, 2008, 00:39_

**She Remembers**

Tosh can't understand why she likes Owen so much.

Perhaps it's because she knows there's no relationship to be had with Ianto (because of Jack) or Jack (... also because of Jack) and she needs someone who understands about Torchwood, someone who understands the things she has to deal with every day. But besides that, there's something about him, something under his arse exterior that makes her believe that he's more than he seems.

She keeps the card Owen says he didn't write on her bedside table, next to a flower Owen says he didn't give, and still she believes.

**He Forgets**

Owen can't understand why Tosh likes him so much.

He knows she does, he always has. He pretends he doesn't, though. He makes it clear they will never be together. She's not his type. He pretends this ignorance so much and so well that sometimes he really does forget. But other times he catches himself looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Or asking about things he doesn't care about just to start a conversation.

"So what ever happened to that pool tournament?"

He thinks of the mysterious bouquet, the card, and feeling a deja-vu that makes him smile.

**Nothing Would Change**

If Jack remembered the Adam ordeal, he would be proud of the way Tosh bravely stumbled through asking Owen on a date. If Jack remembered the Adam ordeal, he would have been proud of the way Owen accepted. If Jack remembered the Adam ordeal, he would be proud of Ianto just for going about his daily routine. If Jack remembered the Adam ordeal, he'd be proud of Gwen and Rhys for staying together through all the shite they have to deal with that no other couple does.

Jack doesn't remember Adam, but that's okay. He's already so proud of his team.


	3. Date: February 27, 2008, 11:21

_Date: February 27, 2008, 11:21_

**Mortality**  
Mortality doesn't really mean anything to Gwen anymore. She's seen people die. She's seen people come back to life. Everything's fluid. She's always been the first to rush into dangerous situations, but that was for the adrenaline, for the terror, for the rush that made her feel so alive. But now she feels no fear. Now she rushes in simply because she doesn't know what else to do.

And yes, Gwen sees death, but it's never them. It's never people she knows. It's never the team. The team would never let her die.

It's only other people who have that freedom.


	4. Date: March 25, 2008, 00:51

_Date: March 25, 2008, 00:51_

**Conviction**  
When Jack saunters into the Hub with his cheeky grin and his perfectly disheveled clothing, it is easy for Ianto to say no.

When Jack stumbles through the doorway, his eyes wide with unshed tears and his voice quiet and cracking, it isn't.

When Jack looks at Gwen with longing and disappointment, when he corners her, alone together in his office, it is easy for Ianto to say he doesn't love him.

When Jack stares into his eyes and tells him that through all people, all the planets, all the times, he's never met anyone like him, like here, like now, it isn't.


	5. Date: June 19, 2008, 10:40

_Date: June 19, 2008, 10:40_

**Toshiko Sato**  
Tosh reached down and picked a flower from the garden, then rushed back inside to show her prize to her mother. Her mother smiled and said, "You'll make a man very happy someday."

Trevor surprised her in the kitchen with a bouquet of daffodils (daffodils, who gave bouquets of daffodils, really, he was adorable). Later that day he surprised her in the living room with an engagement ring.

"Tosh, I need you to run a check for rift activity in the fourteenth sector, pronto."

There are no flowers for Tosh anymore, and no mothers or boyfriends, either. Now, and forever, there is Torchwood.  
**Captain Jack Harkness**  
He throws himself into his work, he does. His team thinks Torchwood is all that matters to Jack Harkness, but they don't know anything about Jack's life before, about being a Time Agent, about being a con man, about the Doctor, and Rose, what Rose did to him, and why. If they did, they'd probably think Torchwood was just the latest in a long line of temporary solutions, and they'd probably be right.

But they don't know anything about Jack's past, the past that brought him here, the past that demanded he make Torchwood work properly this time. In his honor.  
**Ianto Jones**  
When Ianto sits down and thinks about his past, thinks about his life before Jack Harkness and the Hub and Myfanwy and making coffee, he still remembers Torchwood. A Torchwood much more painfully antiseptic; a clean-running, efficient bureaucracy that killed his lover. Turned her into a monster, turned him into a monster.

When Ianto sits down and thinks about his past he doesn't think about sunny weekends or the outdoors or the puppy he had when he was a kid. Torchwood has taken his past, as surely as it's taken his future. A tear runs unknowingly down his cheek, then drops.  
**Gwen Cooper**  
"I wanna be a copper!" shouts the little girl determinedly.

Her father chuckles. "I don't know, Gwen, being a cop isn't really a job for a girl."

"I don't care, I want to be a copper and I will be," she says sullenly.

"Of course you will, sweetheart."

And she was. She passed every test, every obstacle, every roadblock. She was an officer of the law, and it was nothing she thought it was. Mostly she gave out parking tickets. But along came Torchwood and her captain Jack Harkness and finally she was a copper, protecting the innocent citizens of England from evil.  
**Owen Harper**  
Owen Harper, before Torchwood, was a brilliant doctor. Now he only examined dead bodies.

Owen Harper, before Torchwood, did not know about dangerous aliens on the loose, about rifts in space and time that could be lethal. Now he could die at any time.

Owen Harper, before Torchwood, had no problem chatting up ladies at bars, at getting girlfriends and keeping them. Now he had to use alien pheromones to get laid.

Owen Harper, before Torchwood, was alive. Now he was stuck in some sort of half-dead limbo that, despite only being half-dead, was one hundred per-cent Hell.

Owen Harper, before Torchwood, was happy.


End file.
